Comedian PUNCHES reporter who tweet-heckled him during 'Funniest Celebrity in Washington' contest

Dan Nainan lost his composure and lashed out -- physically -- at a reporter who was heckling him via Twitter as he performed at the annual DC benefit comedy night

Apparently some professional jokesters have thin skins.

Stand-up comic Dan Nainan, a comedy club road warrior whose credits include performing for President Obama, was arrested for allegedly punching a reporter in the face Wednesday night after his set at the Washington, D.C. Improv, when he learned that the journalist had been heckling him via Twitter.

Washington, D.C. Metro Police Department officers took Nainan away while the show was still going on. The MPD had no comment Wednesday night on the arrest.

Nainan seemed unfazed when MailOnline reached him in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

'Hey there,' he emailed. '[B]een up for hours reading all the tweets, and all the stories… Amazing!'

Josh Rogin, a former long-time Foreign Policy magazine scribe who now writes for The Daily Beast, tweeted his snarks while he listened to Nainan, who was supposed to be a professional palate-cleanser between amateurs competing in the 19th annual 'Funniest Celebrity in Washington' contest.

'It was one of the most bizarre episodes I've seen in my 34 years
in the comedy
world,' event organizer Richard
Siegel told MailOnline of the brief one-sided
slugfest.

'He and I were
supposed to do a skit together, with us doing six presidents,' he said.
'But I couldn't put him on stage after that.'

Rogin, who writes for The Daily Beast, took it on the chin but later called the police. Nainan left the DC Improv comedy club in handcuffs

Nainan (R) is known for cashing in on the corporate circuit with a clean, no-dirty-jokes routine

The winner? Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist took home the trophy in his third attempt to joke his way to inside-the-beltway fame, but the night was overshadowed by a one-sided fistfight going on in the club's back rows

The evening of comedy, which raised money to benefit the Pension Rights Center and the Foundation for the Education and the Rebirth of Haiti, featured California Congressman Mike Honda, National Journal political reporter Elahe Isadi, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, NPR announcer Jamie McIntyre, women's advocate Heather Higgins and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page, all showing that they can only be drop-dead serious 355 days a year.

But the competition, eventually won by Norquist, was overshadowed by Nainan's loss of self-control. Rogin said he punched him in the jaw and pushed him in response to two tweets he wrote disparaging the comic's humor as decidedly unfunny.

In a second tweet, he added that the half-Japanese, half-Indian wisecracker had just made 'his umpteenth joke about how Asians cant distinguish between letters "L" and "R". Election, erection, we get it.'

Eleven minutes later, Rogin tweeted an update: 'Dan Nainan just punched me in the face,' he wrote. 'Not a joke.'

Rogin was overheard afterward saying that Nainan had approached him in the back of the comedy club and punched him.

CNN anchor Candy Crowley, known for moderating the second presidential debate in 2012, threw out the 'ceremonial first joke' -- a barb about womanizing aimed at former President Bill Clinton

'Dan Nainan comes over to me and says, "Are you Josh Rogin?" and I said yes,' he said in comments first reported byU.S. News & World Report. 'And then he punched me in the jaw, then he pushed me, then he walked away and about 10 seconds later he came over and punched me again.'

'My face hurts': Rogin called the police after the comedian sucker-punched him. Several witnesses saw the episode unfold in real time

'At that point I yelled, "What the hell are you doing?" Rogin continued. 'Other people noticed and they courted him off, and the bouncers escorted him from the show room, and we called the police and he’s in the process of being arrested.'

Siegel said he was disappointed with Nainan's snap after what he called a 'great' performance on stage.

'We as comedians by the very
nature of the business have thick skin,' he said. 'So what if a reporter doesn't like your
act?'

'If you do well in comedy you know it right there on the spot. I don't
know why he got so angry.'

Rogin toldThe Washington Postthat the attack took him by surprise. 'I didn’t think I was being too harsh with him – he’s a professional comedian and I was being a professional journalist,' he said, before adding: 'My face hurts.'

'One or two sucker punches can't stop the truth from getting out,' he toldPoliticoon Thursday. 'Dan Nainan is just not that funny.'

Nainan is among the modern stand-up comics who are closely tuned in to social media. He told The New York Timesin 2012 that he had purchased 220,000 Twitter followers from a black-market company in order to boost his online credibility.

'There’s
a tremendous cachet associated with having a large number,' he said.
'When people see that you have that many followers, they’re like: "Oh,
my goodness, this guy is popular. I might want to book him."'

Liberal consumer advocate and serial U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader offered a lukewarm set about his fanciful decision to become a corporate consultant to big business

Dan Nainan was funny until he dusted off his 2005 Katrina jokes in a gratingly bad GWB impression. #DCImprov

Jamie Weinstein (L) came into Wednesday night as
the reigning champion. Heather Higggins (R) leveled the night's most
satisfying joke at Anthony Weiner

The biggest applause-line of the night came in a joke from Independent Women's Voice president Heather Higgins. The native New Yorker delivered a devastating quip about the disgraced former New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, whose campaign disintegrated following his latest confessions of a long-term sexting habit.

'The good news about Anthony Weiner is that he lost,' Higgins said on stage. 'The bad news is that he just got an iPhone 5s.'

'Weiner's behavior has been absolutely disgraceful, and I'm thinking of defriending him,' she joked.

As the event began, CNN's Candy Crowley was on hand to 'throw out the ceremonial first joke.'

Recalling the famed U.S. budget sequester debate, she told the audience that during a CNN appearance, a dumbfounded Bill Clinton had said to Piers Morgan, "Sequester? I never even met her!"'

Jamie Weinstein, the senior editor at The Daily Caller, took the top prize in 2011 with jokes about fictional TV-reality shows called 'Jews in Gaza' and 'Occupy Pyongyang.'

'I take it as an honor being the reigning funniest celebrity in D.C.,' he told MailOnline before Wednesday's competition.

'But you got to have perspective. Being the funniest celebrity in DC is kind of like being the fattest peasant in Zimbabwe.'